THE 31 DAYS OF TUBI-WEEN: PLAY DEAD (2009) ** ½

It’s inevitable when I do one of these 31 Days of Horror-Ween deals that I wind up watching something that looks like a horror movie and sounds like a horror movie but turns out to be only marginally horror related.  Such is the case with Play Dead.  It’s loaded with black comedy and has a dark edge to it, but it’s not exactly a horror flick.  Then again, after the one-two punch of Grotesque and Brutal, I needed something a little more lightweight.  Okay, maybe “lightweight” isn’t the right word here.  “Gory” was probably the word I was looking for.

An old man perpetually lets a poor young cobbler borrow money.  When he’s unable to pay his debts off in a timely manner, the old man takes it upon himself to make time with the cobbler’s wife as collateral.  In order to duck her obligations, she pretends to be dead.  At the funeral, the old timer takes the grieving husband out for some sake and suggests leaving two of his buddies behind to watch over her “corpse”.  That’s when their necrophiliac tendencies start to come out.  Naturally, she’s forced to play dead in order to keep up the charade.

The set-up is ripe with possibilities, but the filmmakers kind of go overboard with the comedy at some junctures.  I guess that makes sense, since some of the subject matter is so cringey.  I mean it’s basically a bedroom farce with some (presumed) necrophilia.  The two chuckleheads that molest what they think is a corpse are played much too broadly to get any real laughs though, and the Zatoichi impersonator is kind of an odd third act addition to the mix.  

Then again, I’m not sure there was a sure-fire way to play any of this.  If they went the horror route, it might’ve been too bleak and/or depressing.  If they went any further with the comedy, it would’ve just been… weird.  

The good news is after everything is conveniently wrapped up, the husband and wife get back together and have a lengthy, steamy, and erotic love scene.  It’s a nice reward for the audience for sitting through so much sketchy/questionable canoodling early on in the picture.  It’s just a shame that it took so long for Play Dead to come to life.